OP Editors's blog

The latest column in the Chapel Hill News by OrangePolitics Editor Molly De Marco asks whether mobile homes should be a part of the affordable housing solution in Orange County. What do you think? Read the column below:

Are mobile homes the (partial) answer to affordable housing in Orange County? Or maybe a better question, should mobile homes be part of the affordable-housing solution in our communities?

A new column in the Chapel Hill News by OP Editors Molly De Marco and Travis Crayton and Seth LaJeunesse calls for improved bike and pedestrian infrastructure that prioritizes people over cars. Read the column below:

Recently, each of us has had opportunities to travel to other cities and get a feel for how people move through different environments to get from place to place. All of us recently used Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and one of us also used bikeshare programs in New York City and Denver.

Through these experiences, one thing became clear: You learn more about traffic and safety from a bicycle seat – or as a pedestrian, for that matter – than you do from the seat of a car.

The Mayors of Carrboro, Hillsborough and Chapel Hill and the Chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners put out a joint statement to the community on the 2016 Presidential Election. The text of their letter is below.

Just what the election means for our community is yet to be fully known and may not for some time, but local efforts are underway to anticipate issues before they arise and respond.

For example, El Centro Hispano-Carrboro will be holding a community forum on Tuesday, November 22nd at 6:30 pm to discuss what the election might mean for immigrant communities. The location is to be determined. We will post the location in the thread when it is announced.

Know of other community activities being planned in response to the election? Please comment and share it.

Post Date: 11/14/2016 10:49 AM

An Open Letter to Orange County Residents:

Like many, since Election Day we have reflected on what our country’s presidential election will mean for our communities.

Chapel Hill resident, Matt Bailey, is back. This time he's rejecting the notion that Chapel Hill should or even can stay the same. Check out his thoughts below. Do you agree?

A while back, I read an opinion piece about how Chapel Hill was so much better back in the good old days. How Chapel Hill used to be smaller. How Chapel Hill used to have more charm. How all these new places for people to live have ruined our sense of place.

These sentiments aren’t merely one person’s opinion. Seems you only have to be in Chapel Hill for fifteen minutes before someone tells you how great it was back in some bygone era.

It’s true that Chapel Hill was a whole lot smaller years ago. In 1960, 12,573 lived here. Today, 59,568 do. However, have you ever stopped to ask yourself why Chapel Hill has grown so much?

The latest column in the Chapel Hill News by OrangePolitics Editors Travis Crayton and Molly De Marco cites recent releases from the White House calling for increased density in urban development to address the chronic national problem of housing affordability. These are just the type of strategies that we have been supporting on this blog for Orange County.